I unfortunately was caught sleeping on the job. Yes, I have finally pushed a longplay series on Youtube and since I don't want to do 7 posts I will do one post of 7 videos. This is for "Alwa's Awakening", released by Elden Pixels for PC/Mac/Linux on STEAM at Feb 2. 2017; if you need some help deciding if this is right for you, I encourage you to check out other recordings as well, INCLUDING THIS LONGPLAY by yours truly. <3 (Playlist)

For anyone who just doesn't want to sift through my metagarbage on my personal Twitter, I have made a Twitter handle that deals with ONLY content uploads, stream announcements and other assorted events.

I will be cross-RTing these on the main twitter, but following this one guarantees no garbage.

I have a long rant and since it's GW2 related and longer than 140 characters it is going here. NSFW warning: verbage.

TL;DR: There is no TL;DR. Read everything.

I run around with the Easy Access Quartet of world bosses almost every day, helping people out when I can. However, there is one stop during this Easy Access Quartet where someone throws a blockade of fuckery at us.

It's not Great Jungle Wurm. It's not Shadow Behemoth. It's not the Svanir chief.

It's Fire Elemental. Every. Single. Fucking. Time.*

What happens? During either one of the last two events in the Fire Elemental chain (Kill the Fire Elemental, Guard C.L.E.A.N. 5000 during main spill cleanup), someone sneaks in and activates the panel that shields the reactor which accesses the Champion Steam Ogre.

Why is this bad? Because the status quo is someone charging up the Fire element on the Matrix Cube Key after killing the FE by accessing the destroyed golem. By the time we get to the _now reactivated shielded reactor_, because of the prior breach, the console override protection is up, and we can't use the key to usher in the 30+ who JUST FINISHED FE AND WERE LOOKING FORWARD TO THE STEAM OGRE FIGHT.

There's a term for this. It's called "griefing". And apparently ArenaNet doesn't care.

If you've been a victim of this, I encourage you to bitch (POLITELY) at ArenaNet about this. Maybe if they get more reports they might look at changing the credentials necessary to keep this whole thing streamlined.

While I'm currently mitigating a SHTF moment regarding a fantastically-failed series push related to capture software, my Youtube channel is still semi-active with frequent playlist adds, including a growing stash of found older electronic musics.

so an Inna variant became top vote on Diablofans.. it involves 2p Raiment, Shenlong's and 5p Inna w/ cubed RoRG. Aptly called, "Inna Gen Monk". The only thing I'm worried about with the setup though, is that Unity pair w/ Inv follower and Spirit Guards are practically mandatory.

I've noticed the build used Endless Walk. I'm not sure if you're depending on Dashing Strike and Epiphany to keep moving from target to target, or you're using the DR component and staying mobile. I could see EW being viable as you're practically required to use a Unity pair, however...

It's with regret to inform all of you that since my Youtube has become so stale as of late, and I haven't any time to actually create content, that I'm shuttering my Youtube account. If I decide to try this again, I will form a completely new channel. But as it stands, my current channel is now DEAD. This is not the only reason, however...

Youtube is also planning to livestream a hatemonger that's attempting to run for our country's President. I'm sure all my US buddies know him. Since this runs in direct conflict with my beliefs, it became a compelling factor to make the move. But the majority reason for me closing the account in the first place is because I just can't contribute enough of my own content, with the time frame that I've been put under.

I'll still stream the occasional Hitbox, but if I do want to make snippets during my downtime, I'm looking to the possibility of using Forge.gg for just that.

To all the people who've been eyeing my channel, I'm truly sorry, but life happened.

It's all fun and games until the #Diablo3 patch signalling the impending of a New Season gets released.

Here's the big turns from the previous patch. Do note that some leg gems got reworked, especially the hotly-contested previous configuration of Taeguk finally making its purpose clear. That will be discussed below.

+ SKILLS: It appears Blizzard is doing more of a job in removing the ability to spawn health globes with skills. Hammer of Ancients - Birthright; Laws Of Hope - Hopeful Cry; and Grasp of the Dead - Death Is Life runes no longer have chance to spawn globes.

- Birthright now heals for 3% max Life on a critical.

- Hopeful Cry now reduces Physical damage taken by 25%.

- Death Is Life now has a 70% chance to spawn a Zombie Dog (increased).

Wizard "Archon" damage, armor and resistances have increased during the active phase:

- Damage increased from 20% to 30%

- Armor and Resistance Bonus increased from 20% to 150%

Wizard passive "Unstable Anomaly" no longer has priority if using Firebird's 2P -- the set death save will proc first.

Demon Hunter's "Boar Companion" passive regen and resistance now apply to all allies.

Skills and legs that boost damage by a percentage are now applied multiplicatively to other sources of bonus damage.

+ LEGENDARIES:

- Solanium's chance to spawn a Health Globe now has an 8-second internal cooldown.

- All unwanted legendary potions CAN NOW BE SALVAGED.

- Gogok of Swiftness gem is reimagined to trigger attack speed increase on hit 100% of the time, with dodge chance stacking with IAS. Dodge chance ramps up by 0.5% per stack; Rank improves the chance-per-stack by 0.01% (0.75% per stack at 25).

- Taeguk gem now only increases stacks if you're using a channeling skill (Whirlwind, Strafe, Rapid Fire, Firebats, etc.). Stack is hard-limited at 10. Damage increases 2% per stack, with an increase of 0.04% per rank (3% per stack at 25). At 25, also increases armor by 2% per stack.

- Teardrop gem had its base damage and damage-per-rank increased, Rank 25 duration between procs reduced from 5 to 3 seconds; and every time a smite occurs, gain 3% max life.

In light of the WoW vanilla server "Nostalrius" controversy, in which the vanilla server was shuttered by lawsuit from Blizzard Entertainment, I will shed some light on why -- in most cases -- vanilla servers might actually be a good idea.

Before I hop to it, let me inform you of my definition of "vanilla" in terms of gaming: untouched by modifications, extra additions by the company, or purchaseable goods (microtransactions or "micros").

First off, let me make a case example -- my old favorite, Team Fortress 2. It was good, until Valve decided to make it bloated with Steam-specific promotionals, hats, and items that gave an advantage over standard players. MIND YOU, there are ways to obtain these things without ponying up, but the fact you actually have to go through the hells to obtain them in the first place shoved me off the entire ideal.

However, I wouldn't mind playing on "vanilla" servers should they become more prominent -- that is, using the original weapon sets for the classes and no criticals.

"But int, there ARE vanilla servers out there" .. I haven't seen a decent-pop vanilla yet that is in good ping range my dear, and one that isn't popped by bots. And even if it's one, THAT IS NOT ENOUGH.

Let's take that contrast over to World of Warcraft. "Nostalrius" is a private server, yes. It's not a Blizzard-sanctioned server, yes. It was material to be sued by Blizzard, yes. HOWEVER, Nostalrius is what the fanbase considers to be a "Vanilla" server, using old rules, scalars and events that appealed to a LOT of people.

Was the lawsuit a bad idea? In general conclusion, yes: Blizzard invoked the ire of all those players. Yes, they were more or less playing rent-free, but Blizzard can dig itself out of this mess. Blizzard needs to do more than make an appeasement to the gilded gods. It needs to LISTEN to the players, reach out to the owners in some sort of peace offering that doesn't involve sucking them dry of funds, and perhaps even build on their concept and make "vanilla" servers of their own.

That's all I could see that might allow Blizzard to survive all this. Any deviation is unexcusable.

But what makes the World of Warcraft scenario different to a vanilla appeasement of, let's say, TF2, is that all the servers for WoW are controlled by Blizzard themselves. Any average joe can set up a TF2 server and not have to face being sued. But Blizzard did specifically state that any emulation of realms (including private servers) is against their terms of use.

Nostalrius may be offensive on that end, but Blizzard really needs to pay attention on what made Nostalrius successful, and not what they did wrong -- for the sake of the current playerbase, and the future increases of said playerbase.

Is the operators of Nostalrius in the red for what they did? Yes. Unfortunately, so is Blizzard for how they actually handled the ordeal. Blizzard is on thin ice, and the only way to keep them from breaking that ice, is to listen to the players.